This began to feel like Magicals Anonymous. The tension shattered, everyone’s focus turning to the mysterious man. He had that effect on people. When Mr. Abara spoke, everyone listened.
He took out his pouch of charcoal and poured a small amount into his palm. He stowed the pouch away, then pressed his palms together, Chaos sparkling. He drew his top hand away to reveal a tiny, perfect diamond. A gasp echoed across the table.
“This is what I meant by dinnertime entertainment!” I exclaimed.
“Whoa. That’s huge, man.” Oliver’s eyes bugged greedily. “I bet you’ve never been short a quid or two, if you can do that!”
“I don’t use it for personal gain.” Mr. Abara shot him a disapproving look.
I stared at the diamond in his hand. It reminded me of the Jubilee mine, the diamond floor, and Saskia and Garrett. I hope they’re okay. More than that, I hoped they weren’t panicking about me going AWOL. Harley would be going out of her mind, if they’d told her.
“Can we have it?” Shailene asked Mr. Abara.
He shook his head and turned the diamond back into charcoal. “No.”
“What do you do with them, once you’ve made them?” Fay piped up.
“That is my business,” he replied. Nobody dared question him further.
“Blanche, why don’t you tell us about yourself?” Etienne moved the conversation along smoothly. I wondered what he’d seen at this table over the years. His skill at navigating potential hiccups suggested we weren’t the first unruly crew he’d met.
Blanche set down her glass. “I come from the Kansas Coven, and I’m a Shapeshifter with Water and Glacier abilities.” Without prompt, her skin rippled. She turned into Mr. Abara first, then Etienne, before returning to herself. “With Shapeshiftin’, the skill changes as you age. It becomes more difficult to turn into people who are considerably younger, which is why I’m not gonna try and turn into some of you young’uns. It takes a toll on this here body.”
“Fascinating,” Melody said. “I didn’t know that about Shapeshifters.”
“It’s not well known,” Blanche replied. “There’s a group of us oldies in Kansas, and we used to go dancin’ all the time. Well into my forties, I could Shift into a younger figure. One night, we went out and Shifted into slim slips of girls. We wanted to relive a bit of our youth, and my goodness, we were the life and soul. All of those young studs buying us drinks and wanting to take us for a whirl on the dancefloor. We were all married, so nothin’ untoward, I might add. Just dancin’. After a few too many wine coolers, one of my friends got stuck halfway between her true form and the one she’d Shifted into. The lovely man she was with—you should have seen his face! I do believe he screamed, staring at this Franken-woman.”
A chuckle rippled around the table.
“We didn’t try again after that, but we still talk about it.” Blanche smiled wistfully. “They keep me grounded these days. My husband and I used to Shift once a year, as an anniversary treat, so we could be young and in love again, but… well, he died almost three years ago. ‘Died’ is perhaps too soft a word. Katherine had him killed. He had skill as a Necromancer, as well as a Shapeshifter. She took him captive in the middle of the night, as I slept beside him, and… I never saw him again. I received a note through the door, a few weeks later, written in Katherine’s hand. It said he’d resisted her, and he wouldn’t be comin’ back.”
My stomach, with all that lovely food, sank. Did her husband botch Grandpa Prune’s resurrection? She hadn’t allowed me in to see Drake Shipton’s body, but I took a peek when Katherine thought I was elsewhere. The timeline fit.
Blanche stared at me. All her pain hurtled right at my heart. She wanted to blame someone, and since Katherine was dead, I was the next best thing.
“Oliver?” Etienne prompted.
“I’m from Cornwall, though I’m technically part of the Jersey Coven, in the Channel Islands. There isn’t much choice in the UK, unfortunately. If you’re English, you’re usually part of London or the Cumbria Coven. If you’re Welsh, it’s the Cardiff Coven. If you’re Scottish, it’s Edinburgh or Stornoway. If you’re Northern Irish, it’s Belfast.” He sat up straighter, now that he had the group’s focus. “I have Air abilities, that’s it. I’ve studied, though, learning as much as I can about spells and hexes to boost what I’ve got. It’s part of the reason I’ve traveled so extensively. Plus, I’m persistent. A British Bulldog, if you like.”
Pfft, more of a Cornish Chihuahua.
“That is what I appreciate about your sort of magical,” Etienne said. Oliver had somehow won the big man over. “Now, Finch, why don’t you tell us about yourself?”
“I didn’t think Oliver had finished,” I protested.
“Nah, mate, I’m done. That’s all there is to me,” Oliver replied. “Let’s hear what you’re about.”
I had two potential paths ahead of me. Be vague and earn more suspicion, or come out with it, warts and all. I might have feared their reaction, but when I looked at Blanche, I knew I had to try again. The only way to wash off the stink of Katherine was to cleanse myself, and that required a bit of a confessional. Where better to do that than a monastery?
Hold onto your robes, lads, this is going to get personal.
“I’m Finch Merlin, formerly Shipton, of the San Diego Coven. I’m a full Elemental, with Mimicry abilities as the cherry on top of that particular cake. I wasn’t always a full Elemental, though. After my birth, my mother put a Dempsey Suppressor in me. I had no idea, my whole life, until it snapped when I killed her. Before that, I’d done terrible things in her name, and I got sent to Purgatory for it.”
I looked at Blanche, but her face gave nothing away.
“I didn’t truly understand how she’d manipulated me until I lost the woman I loved. Katherine had her murdered.” I clenched my glass for support. “Harley told me what she’d done, and that’s when the penny dropped. Well, it smacked me in the skull. I owe my sister everything. She took a chance on me before I deserved one. She saw that I could change. Her belief in me made me want to change. I never once looked back.”
I looked at Blanche again, and I saw a flicker of something cross her eyes. Sadness? Pity? Anger? Hard to tell.
“I devoted my life to Harley’s effort to take down my mother. In the last battle in Elysium, I sold myself to Erebus so I could kill Katherine and stop that entire Eris nightmare from claiming more lives.” I took a breath. “What I’m trying to say, in essay form, is that I can’t change my past, but I’ve been working so hard to change for the better. I don’t want to be like Katherine, ever.”
I glanced back at Blanche. “I’m so sorry about your husband. I remember him now, and if it’s any comfort, he really dealt Katherine a blow. I wish I could say more to help. I wish I could do more. If I could undo every bad thing I did, and undo all my mother’s evil, too, I would. But I can’t. Even so, please know—I’m sorry.”
Silence drifted across the terrace. Even the monks had frozen.
Blanche lowered her gaze. Maybe I couldn’t change her mind tonight, but I’d said my piece. A long piece. That was all I could do. The atmosphere had changed, though. I didn’t sense quite as much hatred and suspicion as before.
“What about you, Etienne?” Melody came in with a much-needed segue. The silence had nearly killed me.
Etienne smiled. “I suppose it’s only fair that I reveal my own truths. It’s ironic that my revelations should come after Finch’s. He and I share something in common.”
“We do?” That surprised me. Don’t tell me you drank Katherine’s Kool-Aid?
“Seeking to transcend our pasts,” he replied. “Once upon a time, I worked as a magical assassin. I won’t go into the details, but I had some fairly big names on my hit list, and I never missed a target. Never. I killed my client’s problems, no matter who they were.”
A gasp hissed from the table, as if someone had popped a bottle of champagne.
“How come you’re not in Purga
tory?” Oliver asked.
“I made many friends among the upper echelons over the years. Through my line of work, that was bound to happen. I made hits for very influential people, serving special magical interests,” he explained. “Then, I reached a point in my career where I realized that if I didn’t stop, I’d be the one on someone’s hit list. And, by then, I had tired of killing. I suppose I found a moral compass, somewhat late in life. So, I came here, telling no one.”
“No one bothered to look for you?” I asked.
Etienne shook his head. “I knew too much. It was best if I vanished, and that is precisely what I did. I came here, learned map-making from the previous owner, and took over his position when he retired to New Zealand.”
Shailene gaped at him. “How’s that fair? If you killed people, you should be in prison, not running this place.” Both twins looked likely to burst a blood vessel.
“Life in general is not fair,” he replied coldly. “As Monsieur Merlin can attest. The good guys don’t always win. The bad guys don’t always lose. At the end of the day, we can only look out for ourselves.”
“I think that’s a pretty selfish way to look at things,” Fay said coldly.
Etienne shrugged. “I’m sure I needn’t remind you, but you are in my domain, living under my roof. You are here to learn map-making, not to be self-righteous. If you don’t like it, you know where the exit is. I warn you, if you think you will accomplish anything by sending security magicals to this island, you will both be in for a very rude awakening.”
Etienne made it very clear: he wasn’t to be messed with. He’d just told us, outright, what he used to be and how he’d smoothly escaped punishment, which meant he wouldn’t worry about us telling anyone or the authorities coming after him. That waved a few red flags. Was he that powerful? I wondered if the Basani twins would even reach the mainland if they tried to bring him some delayed justice.
But if he thought he and I were the same, he was wrong. I hadn’t hidden from my actions. I’d stood trial for them and faced the music. I still faced it, in order to make amends. And the fact that nobody had come after him spoke volumes. It looked like it wasn’t just the monastery that contained buried secrets.
Ten
Finch
Sleep—who’s she? Don’t know her.
I’d been staring up at the ceiling since dinner. Maybe it was the food giving me a big old dose of indigestion. Maybe it was the unfamiliar setting keeping my nerves on edge. Maybe it was my confessional, dragging up my history and forcing a mirror up to my face. Whatever the case, getting any kind of rest seemed like a distant possibility. I should’ve been dead to the world by now, but nope… the noggin had gone into overdrive.
The twisted statue of Hades didn’t help. Having a huge stone god staring at me didn’t exactly make me want to curl up and drift away into the Land of Nod. I could’ve sworn its eyes followed me. Erebus aside, since he hadn’t tried to communicate through the massive god again, it served as a fitting reminder of the monastery’s strange past. Etienne had dropped a few tidbits about the history of this place, and Melody had gone wild on the details.
Once upon a Greek tragedy, it’d been the home of the so-called gods and goddesses who’d wreaked havoc on humans, siring children left, right, and center and generally causing a mess wherever they went. Wars, disputes, crimes of passion, the whole shebang. So, it’d come as a shocker to find out that they were just an offshoot of the Primus Anglicus magicals, with a slightly more Mediterranean flair for the dramatic. Hera, Zeus, and the entire roster of famous deities had been vastly powerful magicals, but definitely not gods. Not that this had stopped them from being worshipped as divine beings, and even insisting on it from the puny humans.
There was no Mount Olympus, either. Well, the mountain existed, but the magicals didn’t live up there. The location was just a ruse to keep peeved humans from tracking them down. No, they’d lived here at the monastery. According to Melody’s endless knowledge, the island used to be bigger, but the edges got nibbled away by erosion, big chunks swallowed by the Ionian Sea over the decades. I mean, this monastery was already massive, but it’d been even bigger back in the day.
Etienne had mentioned that the current building, plus customary interdimensional pocket, had been built on the ruins of the former palace. He’d collected a nifty cache of the Olympians’ ancient treasures, unearthed from those bygone times, and stored them… somewhere in this labyrinth. Melody had spilled those latter details, and quickly been silenced, but it’d put a peach pit of curiosity in my brain. I loved ancient treasure as much as the next guy.
Erebus, dude, you’ve been rubbing off on me. Who could resist ancient Greek artifacts? My mind racing, I wondered if that was why Erebus had dumped me here. Sure, he wanted me to make a map, but what if there was more to it? What if he wanted me to get my mitts on something here? It couldn’t hurt to have a look, right? I could think of it as taking inventory, in case he threw a curveball at me. After all, he kept harassing me for quicker deliveries of his underhanded tasks. It would be nice if I could get ahead of him, just once.
Mr. Insomnia might as well do something productive. Hypnos and Morpheus weren’t on their way anytime soon. I had learned a lot about the Greek pantheon. As it turned out, Melody had a way of making information stick, even if it came in the midst of one of her rambles. Education by osmosis.
I threw back the covers and put on some real clothes. I’d found what could only be described as a nightie for guys in one of the drawers, and since that was my only option unless I wanted to sleep buck naked, I’d thrown it on. The restrictiveness of denim felt weird after having so much freedom, but I couldn’t wander the halls in that nightie. People might start to talk.
Dressed, I snuck out of my room and went on my way. A couple of monks ambled around, even though we were in the wee hours of the morning. I dodged them, slipping into doorways and hiding in the shadows. I could’ve explained it away as needing to take a walk, but I sensed the monks would feed everything back to Etienne. And I didn’t know how I felt about our generous overseer. He might be a changed man on the surface, but I wondered what muddy water rippled beneath his calm exterior.
I came across statues on almost every corner. Carved figures similar to the one in my room, but not as creepy. Why couldn’t they have put one of those in my room, huh? I’d have taken an Aphrodite or an Artemis, or even a Zeus, over Hades and his eerie grabbers any day.
I rounded another corner, wishing I’d brought string or something, á la Theseus’s escape from the Minotaur’s labyrinth. When in Greece… My mind barely kept track of the turns I’d made in this maze. I thought about retreating before I got completely lost, but a sound stopped me. Whispered voices hissed out of a room ahead, the door slightly ajar. I crept forward and recognized one of the voices—Etienne’s subtle French twang.
“What do you think of them?” he asked.
“They don’t seem too different from the rest,” another voice replied. Peering through the keyhole, I witnessed one of the monks sitting in a chair opposite Etienne. The room had a desk and bookshelves, and though it kept to a simple aesthetic, it didn’t look like a place for sleeping. This had to be Etienne’s study.
“Really? They don’t seem odd to you?” Etienne frowned. “I’m concerned about them.”
“How come?” the monk asked.
“It’s the timing that concerns me, rather than the individuals.” Etienne sighed. “Rumors are going around that a Child of Chaos walks among magicals, in human form. Do you remember Finch mentioning he’d been in Erebus’s service?”
The monk nodded. “I think so.”
“Ordinarily, the mention of a Child of Chaos wouldn’t perturb me, but, as I said, the timing is bizarre.”
“Are you saying Finch might be the Child of Chaos?” The monk sounded confused.
Etienne tapped his chin. “I’m not sure. How easy would it be for a Child of Chaos to take on the body of an existing human? From w
hat I heard about the debacle with Katherine, it should not be a simple endeavor. But stranger things have happened.”
The monk exhaled. “It’s a nuisance that the defensive shield is not more precise in its scanning, but anything more complex would drain the monastery’s energy resources.”
“Precisely,” Etienne groaned. “It is no better than facial recognition. A detailed transformation spell can fool it. And a Mimic would certainly have no trouble tricking the system.”
“Do you want us to keep an eye on him?” the monk asked.
Etienne’s frown deepened. “Perhaps, for now. He claims his dealings with Erebus are done, but who knows how true that is. Watching him will alleviate some concerns, or at least reveal if he’s lying.”
So… the protective shield doesn’t give him everything about us. He’d mentioned his monks doing quick research, so the shield likely scanned the face of whoever entered, and the monks did the rest, looking it up on some database somewhere. It made for a strange image, trying to picture a monk doing a deep dive into everyone’s personal data. Like Astrid in fancy robes.
And he was worried about me being Erebus in disguise? I didn’t know whether to be flattered or appalled. Then again, he hadn’t seen human-Erebus, so he probably had no idea what that would look like. It definitely wouldn’t look like me. Now, at least I knew I’d have to really keep my wits about me, if he was going to have monks watching me.
“Is that all that worries you?” The monk shifted in his seat, and I ducked back from the keyhole.
“No.” Etienne unleashed a strained breath. “I also heard that Davin Doncaster has resurfaced. I suppose it was only a matter of time. But, if he has grown bold again, then he is a disaster waiting to happen. As ever.”
“You think he’ll come here?” The monk had flipped from confused to concerned, and I peered back through the keyhole. I had to. If they were chatting about that ass-wipe, I didn’t want to miss a thing.
Harley Merlin 11: Finch Merlin and the Lost Map Page 8
